Playground Interviews

A key way we learn how to learn is by looking to others for inspiration. This is an interview series to explore the ways individuals have learned about decentralized systems, and learning in general.

Table of Contents

• Playground Interviews
  • Who to interview?
    • Proposing an Interview
  • Process
    • 1. Preliminary Questions
    • 2. Construct Interview
    • 3. Conduct Interview
    • 4. Document and Summarize
      • Artifacts:

Who to interview?

Our goal with this interview process is to provide a point of inspiration for individuals reflecting on their own learning process. As such we want to explore diverse experiences, both in how individuals have learned and how they applied that learning.

Proposing an Interview

If you have someone you think would make an awesome interviewee, create an issue tagged with proposal (feel free to do this for yourself if you think you'd be great 😉 )

Process

Each interview starts with an issue. In this the interviewee should answer the following questions in a couple sentences each, with the goal of not taking more than 15 minutes. This is not meant to be serious or arduous, just to provide a starting point for a more in-depth conversation.

1. Preliminary Questions

1. What do you primarily work on? (field, project, ideas, any descriptors)
2. What were the resources/people/things/ideas the you depended on when learning about it?
3. What are the ideas or mental models from your current work that is most broadly applicable in other stuff you do?

Not all of these have to be answered, and the interviewee can add any other points as they see fit.

2. Construct Interview

Once we have a starting point, the interviewee and interviewer collaborate to create a direction for the interview. This should focus on the specific ideas and concepts raised in the preliminary answers and take the form of one or two guiding questions.

This part is meant to be fun and exploratory, a good way to go about it is to drop references to things the interviewee and interviewer think connect to the topics and ideas discussed.

3. Conduct Interview

The interview can be conducted over whatever medium works best for all the particpants. To the extent possible all material should be recorded.

Any participant in the interview can chose to withold sections of it from public sharing.

4. Document and Summarize

Once the actual interview is completed we need to share the information. Both a summary and transacript should be created along with the hosting of any recordings and put into a file in the interviews folder.

Artifacts:

Specific pieces of information should be extracted from the interview if they're in there:

• Resources and Links
• Direct pieces of advice